Martinez Not Pitching?

The Dragons just activated Martinez on the 6th. [Daily Yomiuri]

Just look at his line from tonight (3 ER in less than 4 innings and immediately giving back the lead when Chunichi tied it up in the bottom of the 3rd) and you'd see why he's not playing.

What kind of incentives does he have? A bonus for a winning percentage above .500?

Martinez is frightening to watch because he's soooo hot and cold. One inning he's mowing guys down, then something happens - he doesn't get a call, someone drops a ball - and he completely loses it.

In his defense, I think he pitched well in some games where he had zero run support, but he seems to lose focus too easily.

He gets money for each start, each win, different plateaus of innings, his final ERA. So potential to make a lot of extra money. I heard he was already at an extra 300,000 with his base of $300,000. And that is with him not pitching well at all and a limited number of starts.

I was under the impression that one of the teams was rotating their foreign pitchers on a 10-day cycle. Someone had suggested this a number of years ago to undercut the player limits. Essentially, a pitcher will be brought up to ichi-gun, throw that day or the next, then be dropped to ni-gun for another foreign pitcher who had completed 10 days on the farm (10 days being the minimum required before being called back up). The purpose of this exercise, according to the person who brought it up, was to abuse the system and expose the foreign player limits to be a farce.

I don't know if this is what Chunichi is doing or not. But Martinez is in the upper-middle of the pack so far as Dragon pitchers are concerned with ERA, and has comparable starts to five other pitchers, suggesting that he's been a part of their six-man rotation all season. [2006 Chunichi Stats - Borisov's Pro Yakyu] He's thrown less innings that others with fewer starts, averaging about 5 and a half innings per outing. That's not a good sign for a starting pitcher. If I were to guess the reason he was sent down to ni-gun, I'd have to say that it was to work on his stamina.

Ah, that would be sneaky! I don't think the Drags are doing this, at least not now, because I think Martinez is their only non-J pitcher.

Another move to expose the farce - if a team only has one foreign pitcher, could it register a foreign position player as a pitcher and put him in the field?

- Another move to expose the farce - if a team only has one foreign pitcher, could it register a foreign position player as a pitcher and put him in the field?

Would that be necessary? I thought the current limit was four in the lineup at any one time - the position doesn't matter. Or is it more complicated than that?

The on-the-field rules have fluctuated a bit over the years [see the Foreign Player FAQ]. It used to be two pitchers and two fielders on the roster, then it was changed to be simply four foreigners on the starting roster, with three fielders and a pitcher possible. The DH is potential for problems in the Pacific League, so I think the DH counts as a position slot. Can anyone confirm this?

Then someone (Hiroshima, I think) put a pitcher in right field or first base with three other foreigners on the field, and the opposing team raised a fuss. The umpire pointed out that he had one registered pitcher and three registered fielders on his roster, and allowed it. (Umpires do make good interpretations of the rules now and then.) The pitcher had entered the game as a pitcher and was not being used skirt the system. He was just moved to a position temporarily for a spot reliever.

- I was under the impression that one of the teams was rotating their foreign pitchers on a 10-day cycle.

It's Yakult that have been doing this this year with Guttormson and Gonzalez.

I think the Tigers did the juggling act several years ago under Yoshida - 1998 I believe. They had seven foreign players on the roster that year, including four pitchers.